


Something To Believe

by Churbooseanon



Series: Starlight Challenges [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They call you the team mother. When things go wrong you step in. Break up the fights, deal with the arguments, make people take a step back and a deep breath and you make them calm down whether you like it or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something To Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Starlight Challenge Prompt for March 9th: You would resent the labels if they didn't fit you so perfectly.

They call you the team mother. When things go wrong you step in. Break up the fights, deal with the arguments, make people take a step back and a deep breath and you make them calm down whether you like it or not. 

They call you an idealist. They call you soft. They call you a soldier, they call you out of touch. They call you a lot of things. Sometimes you think you should be angry about it. Sometimes you get frustrated and want to pound helmeted heads into walls because you can. And once in a while you shoot dirty looks at people when they talk and you don’t want to hear it at that moment. 

But really, John, how can you be anything less? 

Everyone in this army has a background, has a story that explains why they’re here, why they keep moving. Why they fight. Yours? Yours explains the reason you earned all these labels, these titles, these frustrating classifications that fit and yet have no business in a war. 

“Yo, Mom Jeans, do you know where Bitters left his…”

You sigh in your helmet, wanting to turn and remind Palomo how important it is to keep one’s own gear not only in good condition but in easy reach. Instead you just point off in some random direction. Why should you help him when he doesn’t even allow for the proper courtesy or deference your rank is due? 

But no this is punishment enough. Send him off as if you know what you’re talking about, and return to your day and your duties. 

There are few people who have been a member of the army of the New Republic of Chorus for as long as you have. Some of those who have, like Kimball, consider it a matter of pride to keep going. To keep fighting the good fight. You still believe. There is no doubt that you believe in the cause as strongly at this moment as you did when this started. But there is the difference. You have something that most people cannot begin to claim. 

You have been here since the beginning. You were a childhood friend of one Manuel Urlinga, the founder of the New Republic movement. When you focus hard enough you can remember the taste of brownies as you sat at his mother’s kitchen table, and how cool and sweet the milk had been. Back then there had been fear. Every day had been fear because you had the misfortune of growing up in a colony on the edge of human settled space during a war. A war for survival. Luck was with them though, because they were still alive, still standing. 

There was a group of you, when this all started. Five men and women who decided they could stand for no more. Urlinga had died a long time ago, at least that was what it felt like. His successor and a pretty woman named Grace you were going to marry some day, two more of the original five, were killed at the treaty table as peace finally felt in reach. The fourth, well, she died trying to get off planet for help. 

When they came to you, you gave them young Kimball. You had better things to do than die to lead this army. 

She’s lasted longer than many others. She believes it more than others. She believes in all of this. 

You, John… You don’t know what you believe anymore. 

Not until he arrives. 

In the past you’ve put your trust, your heart, your soul into the words of brave me. Of strong men. Of confident women and uncompromising leaders. 

You think that maybe, for once, you want to give just a little bit to faith in a normal man who clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing, but has fought worse than this before. 

What, after all, can it hurt? You’ll just keep moving if he fails you to. 

Because that’s what you do, John. You stand there, strong and dependable, long past the point when you should stop. And that is something you’re proud to be.


End file.
